


The Incubation

by Derin



Series: Parting the Clouds [11]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 16,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4026439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sharing has started a vaccination awareness campaign, and the animorphs need to find out why. Could just be harmless PR. Could also be that the yeerk showing an interest in injecting kids with things might mean bad news. </p><p>But it's hard to make headway on figuring out what the yeerks are up to, because it quickly becomes clear that somethin is wrong with Jake. He keeps seeing things that aren't there, in a place he isn't in. The animorphs have no idea what's going on or how to fix it, but they'd better figure it out fast, because Cassie's certain of one thing -- they're running out of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to JustAnotherGhostwriter, who has generously loaned her awesome betaing skills and general support to this project from start to finish and without whom this would almost certainly not exist (and would certainly be much worse), and Pawnofanellimist, as well as my innumerable temporary beta readers. Also thanks to Featherquillpen, who came up with the series title.

My name is Cassie. And I had this one really, _really_ weird week.

Do you ever wake up in the morning and realise that it's later than you think it is? Like, you spend the whole day thinking it's Thursday, and then realise it's actually Friday? Well, when Visser Three's hoof stomped down towards my broken, fragile bat body and I woke up sweating and trembling, trying to come to grips with the fact that it wasn't real, I woke up feeling the exact opposite of that.

I _knew_ it was Thursday morning. But for some reason, it felt like the afternoon. It felt like I'd somehow missed a few days and woken at completely the wrong time. And I knew I needed to hurry up and get to school. There wasn't much time left.

I was used to _deja vu_. I was also used to hearing noises behind me when nobody was there and being convinced, for just a second, that somebody was about to jump out and kill me. I was used to looking at wounded animals and having to remind myself that they weren't my friends injured in battle.

I was used to my mind playing all kinds of tricks on me. So I ignored the feeling, and got ready for school at a normal pace.

Keeping my normal life separate from my alien-fighting life had almost become routine. I wore my leotard under my school clothes and slipped my skintight gloves in my pocket. I checked my clothing for stray blood and hard-to-explain tears. Made sure my hair was in place and my homework was packed. Said goodbye to my parents, and tried not to consider the possibility that they were being controlled by evil alien invaders.

My dad stopped me in the doorway. “Sweetie.” He looked nervous.

This couldn't be good. “What is it, Dad?”

“I, uh, I know this is a difficult time for you. Being a teenager is hard. And I know things must be confusing, and sometimes you don't think you can talk to anyone...”

“I'm fine, Dad.”

“Fine? Then why have your grades dropped across the board this year? Why are you never around?”

“Do we have to talk about this right now?” It was going to take time for me to come up with some good lies for that.

“No. I know you don't want to talk to me about this. That's why I want you to talk to a counselor.” He handed me a business card.

“A counselor.” I stared at the card numbly. It read, 'Wade Johnson, Counselor' with an office number. An office at our school. He was one of the school counselors.

“I told him you'd be around to see him after school. Do it for me, okay?”

I hesitated. I supposed it was a good thing, to have parents who were worried about me. Plenty of people didn’t have parents who would bother with something like this. Some people… well, I’d never even seen a poster for Tobias. It was kind of screwed up that we lived in a world where their concern was going to cause problems. “Dad... thanks for looking out for me, but I don't need – ”

“Your vice principal called. About your grades. He suggested summer school. This was the alternative.”

Something cold trickled down my spine. I knew Chapman was just doing his job, maintaining his cover, but I didn't like the thought of his attention on me. I didn't like that thought one bit.

“Okay, Dad. I'll see him.”

“Love you, sweetie.”

“You too.” I hurried off to catch the bus.

I didn't want my father to see my expression.


	2. Chapter 2

At recess, I went to find Jake.

He didn’t seem to be around. Neither did Rachel. I quickly learned that this was because their class was having some kind of dance program, which of course always ran over. Square dancing, to be exact. I followed the sound of screaming-cat fiddle music to the gymnasium.

"Now promenade left! Bow to your partner, do-si-do!"

A gymnasium full of students lined up in pairs obediently circled each other and bowed. It wasn't hard to pick out Jake and Rachel. Rachel was the only one in the room managing to make square dancing look kind of cool. Jake was dancing opposite her, and he was not making square dancing look cool. He was looking extremely uncomfortable.

Rachel looked extremely happy. It was hard to be sure, but I think she was critiquing his jerky, lanky-legged do-si-do.

"Now swing your partner back to the left and promenade!" the electronic voice demanded.

Rachel saw me in the doorway and the expression that lit her face suggested that five, perhaps six Christmases had come at once. “Hello, Cassie!” she called in a voice that suggested I was pushing a shopping cart full of free chocolate. “Come to watch?!”

Jake was almost directly in front of me. His face was bright red. Obeying the voice on the CD, he do-si-doed.

I tried not to laugh. I really did.

Okay, maybe I didn't try that hard.

“You find this funny? Me, trying to dance?”

It was probably a good thing that I couldn't get enough breath to answer, because I had no idea what I would have said. Fortunately, Jake started laughing too. I expected that to be the end of the matter, but no – it was a prelude to horrible, horrible revenge.

Jake's big hands grabbed my wrists and pulled me into the dance. Rachel, smiling, stepped aside, letting me take her place in the pattern.

“No way!” I protested.

“Let's see you do-si-do,” Jake said as the electronic voice commanded him to swing his partner. He took my hands.

“I just came by to say that I can't make the meeting tonight,” I muttered. “You guys will have to have it somewhere else.” I hope he didn't notice how much I was blushing. It's harder to tell on my dark skin than his light.

Rachel noticed, if her smirk was anything to go by.

“Something came up?” Jake asked, concerned.

“Nothing important. My grades have dropped and Dad wants me to see a counselor. I just need to spend thirty minutes lying about homework getting to me or something, get some advice about time management, and get out of there.” I do-si-doed around Jake. “I'm not looking forward to Marco finding out.”

“Hey. Marco knows what the deal is as much as the rest of us. More, probably,” Jake countered, promenading left.

“'Wow, out of all of us, Cassie cracked first?'” I said in my best Marco impression (which was admittedly pretty terrible). “'Maybe she just needs some organic green tea and an intense tree-hugging session. Or to save some baby ducks. That'll make her feel better.'”

Jake rolled his eyes as he reached for my wrists to swing me again. “Okay, so Marco's sometimes a _little_ bit – ” His nails suddenly bit into my wrists, which is no mean feat since Jake is still in the habit of keeping them trimmed from his basketball days. He wrenched one of my arms as he swung me, and I nearly tripped. Jake stood completely still for about three seconds.

Then he blinked, and let me go.

“Jake?” I asked, rubbing my wrists. (He hadn't hurt me, I was just startled.)

“I, uh, I just spaced out for a minute there,” he said, glancing quickly at the people on either side of us and falling back into step. “Sorry. As I was saying, we could keep this a secret from Marco.”

“That secret would last about five minutes. And then when he found out it would be worse.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right.”

“Well, let me know what happens if you guys meet tonight.” I spun one last circle around Jake and then broke out of the pattern, letting Rachel resume her place. “Have fun do-si-doing.”

“Next time, Cassie, bring a camera!” Rachel called with a little wave.

“I hate you both,” Jake muttered.

But he was grinning.


	3. Chapter 3

Mr Johnson's office was actually pretty nice. There was a potted plant in one corner. The chairs were comfy. He kept the shades drawn, probably so that kids would feel like the room was safe and private.

Mr Johnson himself was about my dad's age, with greying brown hair and laughter lines around his dark brown eyes. I expected him to be stern and wear a suit. Instead he wore a slightly open light blue shirt that was probably really expensive. He smiled at me as I sat down.

“Hello, Cassie.”

“Hello,” I responded cautiously.

“I've been told you've been having some trouble coping with school.”

I shrugged.

“Well, thank you for coming,” he said sincerely. “A lot of kids have trouble with school, and a lot of them never come to us. There's no shame in seeking help.”

“I haven't seen you around before,” I muttered.

“I'm new. Now, is there anything you want to talk about?”

What _could_ I talk about? Fortunately, I'd spent most of the day preparing for the meeting. I had some ready-made answers that had nothing to do with fighting aliens.

“Well, schoolwork is harder this year, I guess,” I mumbled.

Mr Johnson nodded understandingly, but said nothing.

“I used to be able to get more done,” I continued, mostly to fill the silence. “I mean, I was never one of the smart kids, exactly, but there's nothing wrong with a B average, right? But this year, it's just...”

“Do you know why that might be?” he asked gently.

I shook my head. “I mean, I have a lot of chores and stuff, so I don't always have much time for homework.” Here it was; the time management speech.

“Do you like your chores?”

“Huh?”

“What kind of chores are they?”

“Well, my dad runs the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. I don't know if you've heard of it?”

“I haven't.”

“Right. Well, we take in injured animals, like wild animals, that have been hurt by humans. We nurse them back to health. It's a lot of work.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah. I guess I do.” I smiled despite myself. “I like animals.”

“Right. And you're spending more time with your animals, so your grades have dropped.”

“I guess,” I shrugged. That was as good a safe explanation as any.

Mr Johnson nodded. “Well, Cassie, nobody can really tell you what a good or bad situation is here – that's for you to decide. But I don't think we should automatically assume that this is a bad thing.”

I blinked at him. “Huh?”

“I'm supposed to tell you that school is important and try to get you to summon up some enthusiasm for what your parents and teachers have been trained to tell you is important. But we each decide for ourselves what is important. Now, failing grades are a problem. There's no doubt about that. But grades aren't all important to all people. If you're spending more time on duties other than schoolwork, maybe it's just because you've found something more important to you than schoolwork.”

This meeting was not going at all how I expected. “So you're saying I should keep failing?”

“No. Your grades are important, because they lead to future opportunities. You need to pull them up to at least a pass. But one problem I find with a lot of students with low grades, is that the stress over having low grades actually makes things worse. They think that grades determine their worth, and that makes them run away from working on them because they hate feeling worthless. Maybe you should think of your grades like... like healing an animal. If you put in work studying, they'll heal up over time, like when you put in work with animals, feeding them or... or...”

“Cleaning cages,” I supplied.

“Yeah, stuff like that.”

“I've never really thought about it that way before.”

“That's my job. Is anything else bothering you?”

Was it okay to just say 'no' and walk out? Probably not. But 'I'm sick of waking up in the middle of the night remembering tearing out throats' wasn't going to cut it. Neither was 'the fate of the world is on my shoulders because of alien attack'. Or 'I think I'm going to die soon'.

I sighed. “Do you ever just... feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders? Like everything depends on you? And you're just so sick of fulfilling the universe's demands and every time you do there's just more, but you can't stop or everything will fall down and you'll be left unable to start again?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“I just...” I paused, trying to find a safe way to explain. “You know what, it doesn't matter.”

“I think it does, or you wouldn't have brought it up,” Dr Johnson said gently. “I think what you meant there was 'I don't want to talk about this right now'. And that's perfectly okay, Cassie. I'm not going to make you talk about anything you don't want to talk about. But there's a world of difference between not wanting to talk about something, and something not mattering. We're told that the things that matter are the things people see; grades matter, manners matter, what you can give people matters. And that's true, but they're not the _only_ things that matter. We get the impression that if we don't want to share something, or can't, then it shouldn't be important. But things don't need a reason to be important to you, Cassie. Even things that you keep to yourself are important if they feel important to you. Because no matter how much the world tells you differently, you and your feelings matter. So promise me one thing, okay? Next time you don't want to talk about something, use a different phrase than 'it isn't important'. You owe yourself better than that. Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“I understand if you don't want to talk about this, but you have the look of someone who isn't sleeping well.”

“I get nightmares,” I admitted.

“Nightmares? About what?”

I shrugged dismissively. “Stupid stuff.”

“If it bothers you, it isn't stupid.” Dr Johnson held my gaze with his. With effort, I looked away.

“Hurting people,” I muttered. “In my dreams, I... need to defend myself. Or my friends. Or my family. And I hurt people.”

“Ah.”

“Why, are you going to go all dream-interpreter on me?”

“No. Dreams don't really have direct meaning in the 'you dreamed of water so you're afraid of failing a test' kind of way. But they do tell us what we're afraid of.” He studied me for a moment with a faint smile. Somehow, it wasn't intimidating. “You're a very special young woman, Cassie.”

“If you say so.” I glanced nervously at the door. As if waiting for that cue, Dr Johnson stood up.

“I guess you want to go home, huh?”

I nodded.

Dr Johnson opened the door for me. “Well, I hope you come and see me again,” he said with a smile that looked completely genuine. “If you think of anything you want to talk about.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I... I think I will.”


	4. Chapter 4

<So the Sharing is doing a vaccination awareness day,> Tobias' voice said in my head as I got off the bus.

I scanned the sky. A red-tailed hawk dropped down and alighted on the fence near me.

“Why?” I asked.

<That's what we really want to find out. Could just be a charity thing, make themselves look good or whatever. But...>

“But the yeerks showing interest in injecting people with things might mean trouble.” I nodded. “So what are we doing?”

<We voted to check it out. Didn't want to make any big decisions without you there to vote. It's just a small-scale thing; we thought, go in as insects or whatever, get a look behind the scenes. It's Saturday at the mall, starts about ten. We want to get there an hour early.>

“I'll be there,” I assured him.

<Great. Oh, how did your psychologist thing go?>

I frowned. “Does everyone know about that? And it was a counselor, not a psychologist. I'm not crazy. Well, apart from this war thing.”

<Sorry.>

“Did Marco joke about it?”

<No. Rachel gave him the most terrifying glare I've ever seen before he could open his mouth.>

I smiled. Good old Rachel. “It went fine. Thanks.”

<You know, if you ever want to talk to someone a bit more… well, who you can be more honest with…> Tobias started to preen a wing. Tobias expresses himself a lot through preening. I was pretty sure this was vaguely-awkward-preening.

“I know. You too, Tobias. I’m usually around.”

<Right. Well. Good. I gotta get back to my meadow. See you around, Cassie.>

“See you.”

He took wing, and I did the animal rounds. Then I headed inside to do my math homework. I really did need to pull those grades up to at least a pass. I couldn't afford my parents getting too worried.

Vaccination awareness, huh?

I barely even noticed myself pulling out a non-math-related notepad. I began to take notes.

Could it be an attempt to poison people? Kill off a lot of humans at once? No, there were easier ways to do that.

Could it be that they actually were interested in making sure everyone had their vaccinations? They'd want a healthy population of hosts, after all. No... that'd be a waste of their efforts, they could just vaccinate people after capture.

Could just be The Sharing making themselves look good. Could be nothing important. They did beach clean-ups and stuff sometimes. Maybe they were branching out.

Maybe. Couldn't take that chance, though.

I turned my attention back to my math homework. Stared at equations taunting me over the meaning of x. They swam meaninglessly in my head.

Why was this so difficult? It wasn't like I was in the middle of anything. We weren't saving andalites from the bottom of the ocean or deciding the fate of our species or stealing crystals protected by impossible security. I had two days before anything yeerk-related was going to happen, and it would be a routine surveillance when it did.

So why did I feel like so much was going on? Why did I feel like we were running out of time?

Why couldn't I focus on algebra?

Cocoa. Cocoa would make everything better. I headed out to the kitchen to make myself some.

A nice, normal cup of cocoa for a nice, normal girl doing her nice, normal math homework.

Or I could go practice morphing for awhile. I'd been thinking about morphed clothing, and whether we could choose to morph back without it. If we could, then it might be a useful way to store important papers or whatever in zero-space; morph them away with the suit, morph back without them. Retrieve them in a later morph. So far, I hadn't been able to make it work, but I didn't know if it was impossible or if I just needed to practice more. No harm in finding out, right?

I could always do my homework later.


	5. Chapter 5

<This place has a disappointing lack of rotting garbage,> Marco pointed out as we settled on Jake's collar.

We were in fly morph, of course. The giant vaccination posters on the walls in the hastily repurposed halls of the mall were fragmented mosaic images to me, like I was looking at them through a broken mirror; the people moving around us were meaningless until they got too close and then they were a momentary obstacle; and Marco was right – there was nothing deliciously rotten to smell.

The plan was pretty simple. The yeerks were hosting their vaccination awareness campaign. They'd set up a series of booths and bedecked the walls of the already-crowded mall. Jake had gone along with Tom, who was only too happy to get his little brother involved in the Sharing. Marco and I were to attach ourselves to Tom at the nearest opportunity and go listen in on any secret meetings or whatever, while Jake and Rachel wandered about the place reading posters and pretending not to be backup in a reconnaissance mission involving teen guerrillas. Tobias and Ax were waiting on the roof as emergency backup. Ax had our single stolen Dracon beam, but if we were very lucky, he shouldn't need it.

“Hey, Tom,” Jake said, putting his hand on somebody's shoulder. Marco and I zoomed down his arm to land on Tom's collar.

“What's up, Midget?” Tom replied in a very convincing big brother tone.

“I was gonna get a coke. You want one?”

“No, I'm fine. I got posters to hang. Good on you for coming, by the way.”

“Uh, yeah. Have fun hanging posters.” Jake left, presumably to avoid being asked to help. I crawled along the edge of Tom's collar to peer over his shoulder. A fly doesn't see very far, but I could tell that Tom had picked up and armful of paper. He didn't start sticking it on walls, though. Instead, he headed down a corridor, probably one of those little ones that lead to toilets and janitor’s closets, and through a side door, into a small office. A young woman was sitting at a desk in the office. She sat bolt upright as he entered. “Sir.”

Tom dumped the pile on her desk. “Tell Iniss we're on schedule. We have mostly parents with babies, as you'd expect, and some teens who I think were just shopping and stopped for free food. Solin's implemented the new system at the hospital and we should finish rebuilding by Friday.”

“Yes, sir. I'll put that in the report.”

“See that you do.” Tom turned to leave.

“Sir, there are flies on your shirt!” the woman said quickly.

“Get them!” Tom shouted. But the woman was already scooting over the desk with surprising agility, bug spray in hand. And Marco and I were already taking off.

Humans are slow, to a fly. Pretty much anything is slow to a fly. But no matter how quick you are, it's hard to dodge a wide spray of mist.

<Jake, we've been spotted!> I said tersely.

<Fly up out of reach!> Marco said as he did just that. I followed suit.

The room went very, very quiet. Tom took off his jacket and blocked the gap under the door with it, then crept around to make sure that the single tiny window in the office was firmly closed. They were still looking for us at about eye height and below; humans don't look up very much. But they would eventually.

<We need to hide,> I told Marco. <We just need to hide out until the others morph and...>

<Where are they going to morph? They're in a crowded mall! Somebody is going to notice if a tiger shows up!>

<Guys, where are you?> Tobias asked.

<A small office in some side corridor. Tom and another Controller are in here. They have bug spray. There's no way out.>

<Window looking outside?>

<Yeah, one.>

<Okay. Ax and I'll do a fly-around and try to spot you.>

Suddenly, a tinny ringing sound flooded the air. We had more important things to worry about.

<Behind the light!> Marco exclaimed. I followed him over to stand above the bare flourescent tube. It was a little warm, but not dangerously so. I walked along the ceiling until, suddenly, I couldn't walk any more.

<Um... Marco... I'm kinda stuck.>

<Me too.> Marco fluttered next to me. One of his wings didn't move. I tried to twist my little fly body to see what was holding us in place.

<Ugh, I don't understand!> I snapped.

<I do,> Marco said. His voice was calm. Suspiciously calm. <Cassie, I think we're in a spider web.>

<Why do you say that?>

<Because there's a big spider behind you.>

I struggled. Uselessly. I did manage to turn, though. The spider that was making its way towards me was a long-legged cellar spider. I learned a lot about them when I was researching spider morphs for the chee thing. You've probably seen them around your home; tiny-bodied spiders with enormous legs that build big webs everywhere. It loped towards us, intent on eating us.

Well, it wouldn't actually eat us, of course. The spider would inject an acid into our little fly bodies and let it liquefy our organs for a while, then just slurp it out.

Thinking about biology sometimes helps me calm down. This was not one of those times.

<Marco! Do something!>

<Do what, Cassie? Exactly what am I supposed to do to fix this situation?!>

The spider exuded a delicate strand of silk and began wrapping it around my body. My wings were gummed down.

<Jake... Tobias...>

<Cassie?> There was panic in Jake's tone. <Cassie, fight! If you die I'll kill you!>

The spider wrapped me up in a little silk cocoon. I felt a spike of anger. I'd _been_ a spider. What made this one think it could just wrap me up like some ordinary fly? I couldn't turn into a spider right then of course, since you can't morph from one form to another, but...

But I could become inedible.

I focused on Cassie the human.

Now, here's the thing about spider silk. A big, lumbering human can walk right through a cobweb and not notice, so you might think it's very delicate stuff. But actually, it's stronger than steel. To a big human, a thread of silk finer than a hair is no problem. But to a tiny fly, wrapped in layers and layers of the stuff? I might as well have been bound in sticky, flexible steel cable.

And I was trying to bust right through it.

I didn't want to become completely human in that room. The two Controllers beneath us were still looking under things for us, drenching everything they could with bug spray, but they would definitely notice if I fell on top of them. I was about ninety five per cent sure that Tom would be able to recognise me. We tried not to meet at Jake's when Tom was around, but I was his cousin's best friend, and I think Jake has a couple of pictures of me.

What I wanted to do was be inedible to a spider, and be free of that web.

What I wanted to do was be big.

I felt the pressure of my organs trying to grow, restricted by silk. My exoskeleton protected me somewhat. Under better circumstances, it might've been a good time to see if I could absorb the silk into my morph (it sat snugly around my body and shouldn't in theory be more difficult than a morphing suit), but the stakes were a little high to be experimenting.

Instead, I relied on sheer pressure. Wings melted away as my body expanded. Good; they'd only be broken. A few legs snapped. The spider opened its jaws to bite me just as the little silk cocoon tore and suddenly, I was bigger than the spider. The light under me shattered and I plummeted towards the floor. I heard the hiss of bug spray in the air. Even with the light broken, it was easy to see; it was daytime, after all.

<Marco, are you alright?> I asked as I focused on turning back to fly.

<Yeah, you broke this web right up. Are you okay?>

<I will be if I can lose these Controllers.>

<Found you!> Tobias called. There was the shatter of glass and suddenly, the Controllers weren't interested in me any more.

“Andalite!” The woman reflexively pointed the bug spray at the window. Tom reached around her toward the desk.

<Touch the desk and I fire,> Ax said coldly from outside the window, Dracon beam levelled at her.

“What, you're going to get both of us, andalite? All on your own?”

<Only if you force me to.>

The door, suddenly, didn't exist any more. In place of it was a tiger. A very angry-looking tiger.

Jake dodged around the two Controllers in a single, easy movement, so that he was near the window and Ax. The Controllers were left in the middle of the room, the door a gaping hole behind them, while I tried to hide under the desk.

<You should leave,> Ax said mildly.

They took his advice.

<We should get out of here,> Tobias said. <Where's Rachel?>

Jake said nothing.

<Jake! Where's Rachel?>

I started demorphing. Over the other side of the room, I could see something growing and shaping itself into a human form. Marco.

<Jake!> Tobias said.

<Huh? What?>

<Where is Rachel?>

<Oh! She pulled the fire alarm to clear the building, but got caught in the crowd. There are too many Controller eyes on her.>

The tinny ringing noise became clearer as my ears became human. That's what it was. A fire alarm. My vision was replaced by human vision, and I looked down at sheets of paper littering the floor. They must've been knocked off the desk during the commotion. They were full of tables of abbreviations and numbers that looked frustratingly familiar, but that I didn't understand.

“So we fly out of here?” Marco asked. He didn't bother waiting for a response; feather patterns were already forming on his skin.

“Jake,” I said gently, “You can't leave here as a tiger.”

<Right.> Jake started to demorph. Ax was mostly bird by that point, and Marco and I were sprouting feathers.

<You might want to hurry,> Tobias advised as he darted through the window, closely followed by Ax. <We have company.>

“Then we stagger our exits. Tobias, get out of here.”

<Me? I'm the most recognisable of all of us. I'll draw them straight here.>

“Ax, then. Go.”

Ax hopped back out the window and flew away. My face stretched, changed shape; my lips hardened and elongated.

Jake shrank, and the skin on his legs became rough. Long flight feathers sprouted down his arms.

The he stopped.

<Uh,> I said, <Jake?>

Jake the half-bird stared vacantly into space.

<Jake!>

<What?> He started morphing again. <Next person.>

<Marco, you go,> I said.

For a second, Marco looked like he was about to argue. But then he flapped out the window and into the sky, leaving Jake, Tobias and me.

<You okay, Jake?> I asked privately.

<Yeah. I just kinda spaced out for a second.>

<Guys, we are out of time,> Tobias said.

<Your turn, Cassie.>

I hopped out the window and immediately felt something hot against my leg. I took off into the sky.

Two people standing on the corner. They couldn't openly use Dracon beams in the middle of the day, but one had one inside his shirt, and he was attempting to shoot me with it. Fortunately for me, it's a little hard to aim that way.

<We're spotted!> I called as I spread my osprey wings and flapped to gain altitude. <I'll keep him busy until you're both free of the window.>

<It's too risky,> Jake said.

<That windowsill is about the only thing he can reliably aim at out here,> I replied. I lined up my prey and dropped.

I'd seen Tobias dive straight for Controller eyes many times. It was getting to the point where the number of eye wounds in the town was getting a little suspicious. But I'm not Tobias. I wasn't sure whether I had that kind of aim.

I didn't need it. Aiming for the general direction of the face is enough to make most people drop whatever they're doing and try to protect themselves.

The armed Controller tried to shoot me from inside his jacket as I dove, and I felt something hot graze my wing. Then I lowered my talons and struck. The Controller lifted his arms to protect his face and my talons scored the back of one arm. A minor wound. But I'd accomplished my goal.

<We're free,> Tobias said. <Let's get out of here.>

We got out of there.


	6. Chapter 6

“Man, I can't believe that I missed all the action!” Rachel grumbled. It was the next day. We were, as usual, in my barn.

“The action was us nearly getting eaten, nearly getting poisoned, having Jake and Ax scare the Controllers away, and then nearly getting shot,” Marco pointed out.

“Exactly! Action.”

“Right. Just so we're clear.”

“And we still know nothing about why they're doing this vaccination thing,” Jake added.

I reached behind a box of dog chews that we kept for injured squirrels and withdrew a few crumpled sheets of paper. “If we could figure out what these are, it might give us a clue,” I said. I handed them to Jake.

Everyone glanced from the papers to me.

<Where did you get those?> Tobias asked.

“At the vaccination thing. They were scattered around the office so I shoved a few in my morphing suit before we left. Sorry I couldn't get more, paper is still kind of hard to morph.”

“Why didn't you tell us about this?” Jake asked.

“Um, I did? Right now? Which is the first time I've seen you since it happened.”

He frowned at me, but didn't press the issue. “Ax, do you recognise any of this?”

Ax peered over Jake's shoulder. He tapped the letterhead. “The name of the company, Ehkol. It is a yeerk word. Wooor-duh.”

“Right, so it's a yeerk company,” Jake said. “What does the word mean?”

“A water channel, like a pipe or a river. Rivverrr. River is a fun word. Riveriveriveriveriver.”

“Do you recognise any of these... these other words or numbers?”

“No.”

“Why do yeerks have phonetic words?” I asked.

“Is that really what's important right now?” Rachel asked impatiently.

It wasn't. I peered at the paper. It was still gibberish.

“I guess we'll have to – ” Jake stopped talking. His hands clenched, tearing the paper. A moment later, he relaxed. “... to keep monitoring,” he said. “I mean, we kind of ruined their event with the fire alarm, so...”

“Jake,” I said, “are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“Dude,” Marco said, “you are not fine.”

“Of course I am. I just zoned out a bit.”

“You 'zoned out' when we were in the middle of an escape yesterday,” Marco said. “That doesn't seem like a situation you can really zone out in.”

“It's not important,” he said quickly. “What's important is figuring out what the yeerks are planning.”

We did need to figure out what the yeerks were planning. We were running out of time. But that didn't mean that other things weren't important.

“What's wrong, Jake?” I asked.

He looked between us, four human faces and one intense hawk all staring at him expectantly, and sighed. “I've been having... flashes.”

“Flashes?”

“Sometimes I'll just be doing something, and then I'll suddenly be somewhere else. Running. Fighting. Whatever. It takes a bit of time to come back to reality.”

We all relaxed.

“Oh, that's all?” Rachel said. “I was worried for a minute.”

“Man, the amount of car alarms that have had me thinking we were breaking in somewhere and I needed to go gorilla immediately...” Marco muttered.

“Jordan jumped out at me from behind the couch to scare me the other day,” Rachel said. “For a few seconds I could've sworn she was a hork-bajir. If she was within reach I could easily have put her as far through the wall as my human arms would let me.”

<I see hikers with metal canteens sometimes,> Tobias added. <When they pull something shiny out and swing it up... well, it's hard to forget Dracon fire.>

“And let's not forget that thing with the yeerk logging camp,” I mumbled. I hadn't really wanted to remind everyone of my freakout, but Jake seemed to need the support.

He nodded, as if we'd made him feel better. But his eyes didn't change, beyond showing momentary confusion. He seemed happy to let the topic drop, but I wasn't so sure that we'd reassured him.

“I'll keep an eye on Tom,” he said. “Everyone, keep an eye out for papers like the ones Cassie took. Maybe we can figure out what they are.”

“I've seen similar things before,” I muttered. “I'm sure of it.”

“Good,” Jake said. “Keep thinking.” He bit his lip. “I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting the sense that we're running out of time.”

We adjourned. I waited until everyone else had left before talking to Jake.

“What kind of flashes are you having?” I asked.

“Didn't we just go through this?”

“No, everyone started talking about battle flashbacks and you let the subject quietly drop while your expression made it clear that you were talking about something entirely different.”

“It's not important.”

“Not wanting to talk about something isn't the same as that thing not being important.”

“Fine, then I don't want to talk about it,” Jake snapped.

I watched him for a moment. Should I push him? I didn't want to push him away. He had a right to his privacy. But we still had a long fight ahead of us, waiting for the andalites to come. And we couldn't afford to lose Jake.

To be honest, I would do pretty much anything to avoid losing Jake.

But I couldn't help him if I didn't know what was wrong.

“Jake,” I said, “you've kept together the best out of all of us, except maybe Marco. And you've been through more than all of us. Now, I know you're trying to look like you've got it all together; we all do that. But since I already know that something's wrong, is there any harm in telling me what it is?”

He sighed. “Cassie...”

“I worry, Jake. I worry that we're not going to be able to hold it together. This group is small and fragile, and if we let things fester...” I looked away.

“Alright, look... it's not a big deal. It's just a... just a thing.”

“A thing?”

“I keep... seeing things. Things that aren't happening. But not battles we've been in, or anything like that.”

“Then what?” I prompted.

“A forest. We're in a forest. You, me, Marco, Rachel, Tobias, Ax. I don't know why. There are monkeys and trees and I think there's a ruined spaceship or something, but... anyway, it's stupid.”

“Jake, I think you should share this with the group.”

“Why? So they can think I'm cracking up?”

“No. Because the last time anybody in this group had weird, unexplained visions, we found an andalite.”


	7. Chapter 7

“It's green,” Jake explained. “Very green. Like a jungle, or something.”

“Beats the ocean, at least,” Marco shrugged.

“What did it feel like?” I asked. “Were you drawn anywhere? Did you hear any words?”

Jake shook his head. “No. I just saw you guys. We were... we were fighting Controllers, I think. Trying to get to a ship.”

We all looked at Ax, who looked uncertain.

“Could it be a message, Ax?” I asked.

<It does not sound like an andalite message,> he said carefully. <For one thing, there would be no reason to send an elaborate scene like that with all of us in it. For another, there is no logical reason that Prince Jake alone should receive it.>

<Cassie and I got your message a lot more strongly than anybody else,> Tobias pointed out.

<Yes, because I was filtering it for andalite recipients. I used a Zero-space anchor as a recipient filter, which the Dome had precoding for. I had to increase the signal strength as my situation became more dire, so you – a _nothlit_ – and Cassie – an _estreen_ – were able to hear it. But unless somebody is specifically targeting Prince Jake, I do not know why he, specifically, would receive such a message. >

“If we're all in it, is it hard to believe it would be aimed at Jake?” Rachel asked.

“Why would somebody send such a message, though?” Marco asked. “Is it meant to be a code that we should understand?”

“Who do we know who's telepathic?” I asked. “I think we can rule out andalites. Yeerks, too; they don't know who we are.”

“We don't know what the chee can do,” Rachel pointed out.

“Yeah,” Marco said, “but if the chee needed our help Erek would just come over.”

“Guys,” Jake said. “Stop. It's not... this isn't some kind of message.”

“We don't know that, Jake.”

“I think it's a pretty safe bet, don't you? Look, can we just... can we just concentrate on this Sharing thing?” Jake rubbed his temples. “Why vaccinations?”

“The chee,” I said suddenly.

“Cassie, please. This isn't – ”

“No, I mean with the vaccination thing. They have Sharing spies. Can't we just ask Erek?”

“Oh. Right. That could work.”

“And the yeerks already caught us spying, so it wouldn't be suspicious for us to know whatever they can tell us,” Marco pointed out. We all understood the importance of not letting the yeerks learn about the incredibly powerful pacifist androids masquerading as humans.

We decided that Marco was probably the least suspicious person to go see Erek. The meeting broke up rather awkwardly, and everybody went home.

I sort of felt like I should've talked to Jake before he left. But I didn't. I had the feeling he didn’t really want to talk to anyone.

I just let him walk away, alone with his thoughts.


	8. Chapter 8

“I think I upset a friend,” I told Dr Johnson.

It was after school on Monday, and I hadn't expected to see the counselor again so soon, but really... why not? I had to talk to someone. And I couldn't talk to the other Animorphs.

“Ah,” he replied. “And you're pretty worried about this, I'm guessing?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, he's got stuff going on, and I just want to help, and...”

“And you told the wrong person?”

“I... I guess, sort of? I mean, I don't think so, but I think he's mad at me for pushing him. How did you know?”

“This sort of thing happens a lot. Friends want to help each other, and sometimes they disagree on how. If things get pushed too far, one can feel like the other breached their trust. Is that what you're experiencing?”

“I... I don't think so. I hope not.”

“Maybe this is something you should discuss with him, then? If you're not sure what the problem is, how can you know how to fix it?”

“He doesn't... he doesn't like to talk about himself.”

“In general, or with you?”

I could feel myself blushing. “What do you mean? Are you saying he shouldn't trust me?”

“I don't know, I don't know the situation. You're being a little vague, presumably out of respect for your friend's privacy. But I do know that sometimes we try to look stronger or more collected than we are around people who are close to us, because we don't want them to worry or to find us tiresome or to bow under undue pressure. I know you like to help people, Cassie. That much is clear. But it might be wise to think about whether you're what your friend needs right now. If you are, great. If you're not, he might benefit from talking to someone else.”

“You want me to send him to you?”

“I'm one option. A parent or church leader or another friend are others. It depends what kind of problem he has, or if he even considers himself to have one.” Mr Johnson leaned forward. “But aside from that, how are you doing? Anything else happening?”

“Nothing impo – nothing I want to talk about.”

Mr Johnson smiled. “This is a safe place, Cassie. I won't make you talk about anything you don't want to. How are your animals?”

“Well, uh, we got a squirrel in a little while ago. It's been burned on a power line.”

“A power line? Does that happen often?”

“More than you might think. They learn after one mistake, but they don't always live to make a second. This one is going to live though. He just needs somewhere safe to regain his strength. Squirrels are hard because the barn always smells like predators and it makes the nervous, but he'll be fine.”

“You get a lot of predators?”

“Definitely. Not long ago we had two wolves. Wolves have just been reintroduced to the area, so it's a pretty big problem if they keep getting injured.”

I kept talking about the Rehabilitation Centre and our work. Occasionally, Mr Johnson nodded, or interjected with a question. He was either genuinely interested in the Centre or really good at acting. Either way, he paid attention, and he didn't stop me talking. I guess I was sort of wasting his time, ranting on about the Centre like that instead of addressing my problems or whatever I was meant to do in those sessions, but it felt so good to talk seriously and passionately with somebody about something other than aliens and battle and death. I'd almost forgotten how much I loved talking about the animals. How much I loved the animals. I mean, it was always there as a sort of stereotype – _Cassie loves animals, Cassie's always helping or protecting the animals, let's ask Cassie about animals_ – but my life had been taken over more and more by fighting the yeerks and simple things like the Centre had seemed less and less important as part of anything except maintaining my cover. I'd almost forgotten how important they were to me in their own right.

How could I forget something like that?


	9. Chapter 9

I spent that afternoon cleaning the barn and stocktaking our supplies. Not because it necessarily needed doing, at least no more than it normally did (it's important to clean everything regularly to stop diseases spreading among the animals), but because I wanted it to be done. I ignored the little sense of urgency in my head, the sense that we were running out of time. It was an illusion, and I wasn't going to let it win.

After everything was as clean as I could reasonably get it, I fed the animals and went inside. I did some math homework. I had to, I couldn't keep putting it off forever. So I made myself sit and focus on math until dinner. After dinner, I focused on biology until bed. My mom had bought me a new book about the Amazon after I told her the Animorphs were an environmental support group and it seemed ungrateful not to read it, so I snuggled under the covers and read about monkeys and birds and trees until I drifted off.

If I had nightmares, I don't remember them.

I couldn't say the same for Jake, though.

“The chee don't know anything about the vaccination thing,” he muttered to me on Tuesday morning, before class.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” I asked.

“Sort of. A little.”

“Nightmares?”

He shrugged.

“I'm sorry about pushing you,” I said. “About the... thing.”

Jake shrugged. “It's okay. You were trying to help.”

“Well, anyway. I probably should have left well enough alone.”

Jake sighed. “I have no idea what we're going to do about this vaccination thing. I hope one of you can come up with something, because I can't.”

“We need to do something quickly,” I said.

“I know.”

“They said something about completing construction at the hospital,” I said thoughtfully. “We could... see if anything weird is happening at the hospital?”

“It's not a great lead,” Jake shrugged. “But it's the best we have.”

“About these vision things – ”

“I thought you were leaving well enough alone?”

“I'm worried about you, Jake.”

“I know. That's the problem.”

“How can having someone who worries about you be a problem?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“Do we have to talk about this?”

“You do. Maybe not with me, but with _someone_. Look, Mr Johnson, the counselor I'm seeing – ”

“I don't need a counselor!”

“No, I guess only I do. I'm the one going crazy. The only one in this whole team crazy enough to admit that maybe we all actually need a little help!”

I expected Jake to backpedal, to tell me I wasn't crazy. Instead he smiled a grim smile that didn't reach his eyes. “We're all going crazy, Cassie. But we can't afford to. You understand? If we start breaking down now, if we let ourselves give in to it...”

“'Give in to it'? Jake, you're almost falling asleep on your feet. We're all nervous wrecks. We're constantly exhausted, and stressed, and about to die at any minute.”

“Exactly. And by behaving like any of that is happening, we're going to get ourselves killed.”

I crossed my arms. “You're saying I'm betraying the Animorphs by addressing this.”

“No! No, I'd never... you'd never betray us. But Cassie, you can do that sort of stuff. You need to. You... you hold us together.” Jake shook his head. “But somewhere along the line, you guys decided that I was the leader. And that means I can't break down. We've all... we've all dealt with stuff that affects us in battle. Tobias ran away that one time. Rachel was completely uncontrollable in battle when she was dealing with her stuff. And you...” he shook his head again. “But we get back up, we keep fighting. If I break down... maybe people won't keep fighting. Maybe we'll all break down at once. Do you understand? We can't _afford_ that kind of thing. Which is why we can't afford for the group to have doubts about my ability to hold it together, and you keep bringing this stuff up...”

I narrowed my eyes. “Believe it or not, Jake, the entire team doesn't stake their own mental health on yours. And if we don't deal with this sort of thing, we _will_ all break down.”

“Like you can talk,” Jake muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“You're so insistent on trying to find what's 'wrong' with me, but we never talk about _you_ , do we? Instead you risk everything by going to talk to a stranger. I’ve seen you jump and flinch and… avoid subjects. You don't share your problems with me, and you expect me to share mine?”

“You want to know what I'm dealing with?”

“You want me to share, you should share.”

The logical thing to do would have been to stop talking while we were both so heated. To calm down, to think, to find a way to proceed. But right then, I wasn't feeling logical. I knew what he was asking me. I knew the answer would hurt him.

I didn't care.

I met his eyes. When I spoke, my voice was low, calm.

“When you touch me, and I'm not expecting it,” I said quietly, “I can't help but think of Temrash, slamming my head into that table.”

Pain shot through his expression, and I instantly regretted my words. I felt tears well in my own eyes.

“And it's stupid, I know!” I added, my voice slightly hysterical. “It's stupid and irrational. Nothing that happened in that shack was your fault, and it hurt you a lot more than it hurt me. It was my fault, for letting my guard down.”

“It was that yeerk's fault.”

“You've saved my life since then. I've saved yours. I would trust you with my life over and over, and I do, every time we go into battle – but some dumb, animal part of my brain just remembers that expression on _your_ face and _your_ hand in my hair and I just can't make it go away no matter how much I try!”

Jake, his expression neutral, put his arms around me, and started petting my hair in the manner that Rachel sometimes did. “It's okay. It's not your fault.”

“That doesn't make it any less true.”

“I know.” He let me cry into his shoulder for about half a minute before saying, “I dreamed of Rachel getting eaten alive.”

“What?”

“Last night. We were in the forest – the same place, I think, as my weird flashes. She was unconscious and wounded. A bear. And there were ants, crawling into her wounds and ears and mouth...” he swallowed. “There was a river, but she was a bear, none of us could carry her. You were screaming. Marco was panicking. Tobias just kept shouting her name, over and over, but she wouldn't wake up. And I remembered... I remembered what you'd told me about ants. After your experience being one. I remembered how warlike you said they were. So I got Tobias to find another nest, and I... I ripped out a chunk of her flesh... and made a trail to tempt them over...”

“Was she okay?” I asked.

“She survived,” he said.

I nodded. “Thanks. For telling me.”

“Likewise,” he said.

“I should get to class.”

“Yeah.”

We headed for the building in awkward silence, neither of us acknowledging the fact that the bell hadn't actually rang yet.


	10. Chapter 10

I'd been hanging out with the Animorphs far too much recently, so I spent Tuesday night watching a documentary with my parents. Something about new cancer drugs. I wasn't really paying attention.

My parents sat together on the couch, fingers loosely entwined as if they hadn't even noticed that they were holding hands. My mother's head rested on my father's shoulder and she smiled, eyes half-closed. My father stared intently at the TV as the narrator said something about chemical reactions and growth factors in cells.

I had to protect them. People like them. Everyone. And to do that, I had to protect the Animorphs. But I honestly had no idea how long any of us could hold up. Grown, trained soldiers broke on the battlefield all the time – what chance did a handful of untrained teenagers have fighting aliens?

I'd said from the start that five teenagers (or six, now that we had Ax) was an acceptable sacrifice if we could do anything at all to hinder the yeerk invasion, if we could buy the andalites a little more time. And I knew that we could, indeed, die at any given time. But to slowly break down as layers of our minds were rubbed back by the raw realities of what we had to do, that was a much slower sort of destruction than I'd ever expected.

The documentary said something about cancer incidence in rats. My mother stirred.

And what choice did we have? None. We couldn't retreat. Humanity couldn't afford to lose us. We had to keep throwing ourselves at the enemy, then patch ourselves up as best we could, and then do it again.

The narrator of the documentary claimed that the new cancer drug would be available in five years, and pictures of cute little white rats were replaced with a diagram of a drug development pipeline.

I sat bolt upright.

Mom opened one eye. “Cassie?”

“I just remembered a school thing I have to do,” I said. “Dad, you know how you used to be in research?”

“Yeah?”

“You used to have folders of all your old papers. Do you still have them?”

“In the attic, probably. Why? You won't be able to understand them.”

“Doesn't matter.” I dashed up to the attic and, after about half an hour of searching, found what I was looking for – folders of official-looking articles with long words and complicated diagrams. I flipped through them until I found a table that looked sort of familiar.

I _knew_ I'd seen that stuff before!

But even though we were running out of time, even though I felt excited, I didn't call the Animorphs right away. I went to bed first. Then I snuck out my window, and morphed Osprey. It would have been difficult explaining to my parents why I suddenly needed my friends around.

But we definitely needed to meet.


	11. Chapter 11

“Is this really middle-of-the-night important?” Marco groaned, lying back on a bale of hay. “I like to at least try to get some sleep before the nightmares.”

“It's a pipeline,” I said.

“Huh?”

“The yeerk word...” I checked my stolen papers... “Ehkol. Ax, you said it meant a waterway or river?”

<Indeed.> Ax hadn't morphed for the meeting. Nobody was going to come into the barn in the middle of the night unless something went very wrong.

“They meant pipeline. When human industries make something, they call the development process a pipeline. In this case, it's a drug development pipeline. I think they just randomly picked up on the word to title their project.” I laid the stolen papers out on the little bench, and one of my father's research papers next to it. “These are drug reactivity tables. They're testing how different compounds react with stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“How should I know? They've used abbreviated technical names. Might be mouse cells, might be blood extracts, might just be detergents or salts or something. Depends what they're making, what it's meant to do, and how far in they are. But it looks like they're making drugs.”

“Drugs to poison people in the guise of vaccinations,” Jake said slowly. “That could be a problem.”

“So we find the factory and smash it?” Rachel asked.

“If they're still doing these, it might not be in mass production yet. Of course, we don't know when these tests were done... they may have finished testing and be in production, or they may be in the early stages.”

“Okay, so what do we do about it?” Rachel asked.

“I don't know,” I said.

“I think we're back to the hospital plan,” Jake said, sounding tired. “They mentioned building something. We get in, find out what it is, and break it.”

“I'm not sure what they could be building that relates to this,” I frowned.

“Well, let's find out. No messy invasions this time. We go in from the roof as the little monkeys, then we shouldn't need to do any morphing inside the hospital; we...” Jake stopped and frowned.

<Um,> Tobias said, <what little monkeys?>

We were all silent for about half a second.

“We can do the cockroach-in-the-sleeve thing,” Rachel said as if nothing had happened.

“Last time we did that we had to exit via the roof,” Marco pointed out.

“Well this time there won't be any Secret Service personnel, will there?”

“No, just a whole lot more Controllers.”

“Jake,” I said. “Could you describe these monkeys?”

“Doesn't matter. How about – ”

“Please, Jake,” I said. “It's important.”

Jake sighed. “Brown. Fuzzy. About so big, plus tail.” He held his hands out to indicate a couple of feet.”

“Their faces?”

“I don't know, monkey faces. Beady little eyes. Rubbery-looking noses.”

“And the plants in the jungle? What did they look like?”

“I don't know. Plants.”

“Jake...”

He sighed again and began briefly describing trees and vines, a description that quickly derailed into complaining about mosquitoes and suffocating humidity. After a few minutes, I stopped him. “Be right back.” I snuck inside, into my room.

I picked up the Amazon book my mother had bought me and took it out to the barn.

“These monkeys?” I asked, opening the book to a picture of a spider monkey.

“Yes. Why?”

“Any of these plants look familiar?” I moved through the book, from photo to photo, watching the recognition in his eyes.

“What's this about?” Marco asked.

“The nightmare you had about the ants was the first clue,” I said. “A nightmare about ants? Fair enough. But how did you know they'd behave like that? American ants aren't that vicious.” I sat forward. “Jake, how much do you know about the Amazon rainforest?”

“Not much. Aren't people always trying to cut it down?”

“Not much? Then why are you able to see it in such perfect detail?”


	12. Chapter 12

“He could've just seen a documentary or something and forgotten about it,” Rachel said. “That stuff can come up in dreams.”

“Maybe. But with this... yeerk ship thing? And these aren't dreams.”

<I think...> Ax said hesitantly, before dying off in thought.

“What, Ax?” Jake asked.

<Prince Jake, why are we trying to find this yeerk ship in your visions?>

“I don't know. I just know we're running out of time. There was... something to do with the ship's Dracon weapons?”

<We are in this rainforest, trying to access a ship's Dracon weapons, on a time limit? And you are seeing what is happening in flashes? Are these flashes happening during moments of great stress?>

“I don't think so,” he frowned.

“In the middle of battle, in a nightmare...” Marco counted off known instances on his fingers.

“The first one was when I was square dancing, for goodness' sake!”

“Square dancing with Cassie,” Rachel muttered.

Jake flushed. “Anyway, Ax, what does it mean?”

<I cannot be certain. But it sounds like we may be dealing with a short-range Sario rip.>

“A what?”

<Time travel. An extremely clumsy, temporally ungrounded form of time travel. Your Zero-space anchor forged through exposure to the _escafil_ device is resulting in some... confusion about which 'you' is where in your personal time stream. > He paused. <I think. I was not paying much attention in that class.>

“Time travel,” Rachel said.

<Yes. We are here, but we are also in this rainforest at the same time. A Sario Rip can be caused by the right energy frequency collisions at the right velocity. In theory, it could be created via Dracon beam, although the chances of doing so accidentally are astronomically small.>

“Why do we always have such terrible luck?!” Marco exclaimed.

I glanced at the Amazon book in my hands, purchased and given to me at just the right time. Not always terrible luck.

Just very strange and confusing luck. Suspiciously so.

<It would seem that our counterparts in the rainforest are seeking a way to escape the rip,> Ax continued. <If they can recreate the Dracon-induced tear at under just the right circumstances, they may have a chance.>

“Why not just steal the ship and fly home?” Marco asked.

<Because the existence of two instances of any individual at the same time is impossible,> Ax explained. <Without any form of temporal grounding, our existence is protected only by the rip effect. When we reach the moment of its creation, both instances of us will self-annihilate. We will, effectively, be 'killed' by the rip's formation, or more accurately, the instability it causes in our personal timelines.> He looked at Jake. <You were right, Prince Jake. We _are_ running out of time. >

“Alright,” Marco said, “so what do we do about it? Just let our... current-future-alternate selves deal with it?”

<Their... our... chances of success are very low,> Ax said. <A much more likely event is that they will simply create a second, larger rip. A larger rip would have a much greater destination range. We could end up thousands or millions of years in the past or future. Or in space. Or in the heart of a sun. They would need some kind of anchor to lock onto in the correct time period.>

“Can we make an anchor?” Jake asked.

Ax hesitated. <I am not a physicist, Prince Jake.>

“You're the closest thing we've got.”

Ax nodded, reluctantly.

“How would we go about creating such an anchor?” I asked.

<We would need to produce a modified tear at the correct moment – the moment at which the Sario rip took place. Whoever is attempting to create the escape tear, which will presumably be done by the Amazon version of me, will need to search for the specific characteristics of the modified tear. It need not be large enough to send anything through time; it need only be a beacon.>

“Okay,” Jake said. “We need to know when the rip took place. Then we set you up to do this tiny rip, you memorise the characteristics or whatever, and then when we end up in the Amazon, you'll know what to look for.”

<Is this making anybody else's head hurt?> Tobias asked.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “Yes it is.”

<There is one problem with this plan, Prince Jake,> Ax said.

“Only one?” said Marco. “Oh, good.”

<We will need to do this at the moment that the initial Sario Rip was created. But we will also need to create the initial Sario Rip.>

“Okay,” I said, “this is making my head hurt.”

“Let me get this straight,” Marco said. “We're in two places at once, and soon we'll be in no places at once. To prevent this and just be in one place, we need to find the moment where we moved from one to the other, somehow be in three places at once, and do some complicated physics that Ax only vaguely understands and the rest of us have no clue about? Twice at once? And we only get one shot.”

<Yes,> Ax said. <That is correct.>

“This is making my head hurt, too.”

“I guess the first step is figuring out when this rip took place. Or will take place,” Jake said.

“Oh, that's easy,” Marco replied.

We stared at him.

“Look,” he said as if we were all about five years old, “we create this rip accidentally by just doing the things we do, right? So if we behave as if the whole thing isn't happening, we will end up in the right place at the right time. Or else none of this would have happened.” He bit his lip. “We just have to be prepared when that happens.”

“What would happen if we just... didn't cause the Sario rip?” I asked.

Ax hesitated before answering. <Other field collapse scenarios are highly theoretical,> he said. <And beyond my ability to verify. As I said, I wasn't paying much attention in class that day.>

“So,” Jake said, “we behave as if this isn't happening so as not to screw up making the rip. How are we going to infiltrate this hospital?”

<I'll scout their security tomorrow while you guys are in school,> Tobias said. <Then we can plan.>

“Alright, but we should get on this as soon as possible. We're – ”

“We're not running out of time,” Rachel said impatiently. “Except in the rainforest.”

Jake grinned. “Actually, I was going to say 'we're the Animorphs' only hope'.”


	13. Chapter 13

<You guys aren't going to believe this,> Tobias said.

It was lunchtime at school, and Rachel and I had just headed outside. We couldn't reply, but immediately started surreptitiously scanning the sky.

<Over here, on the gym roof. Speaking of which, I tried to land on the hospital roof. They've got something big up there. Something covered up.> I could hear the excitement in his voice. <A Bug fighter.>

Rachel and I exchanged a glance.

“Did he just say...?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he did.”

We left school very quickly that day.

That afternoon, we all morphed seagulls and, one or two at a time, flapped over to have a look at the hospital. There were indeed several large, blue tarps stretched over part of the hospital roof, as if construction was going on. But from just the right angle above it, parts of the steel body of a Bug fighter were clearly visible between layers of tarp.

<The question is, why is it there?> Jake asked.

<Good question,> Marco said. <But I think we all know what we'd be saying if this whole time travel thing wasn't going on and we could concentrate on normal missions.>

<What?> Rachel asked.

<We'd be saying, 'good question. But more importantly, what would happen if we hijacked that thing and landed it on the White House lawn?'>

There were several seconds of silence.

<That's exactly what we would say,> Rachel said.

<We are idiots,> Jake remarked.

<A Bug fighter does have sufficiently powered Dracon beams to create a small Sario rip under the correct conditions,> Ax volunteered. <But they would be... very specific conditions.>

<Well, we know it happened, so that's not a problem,> Jake said.

<Wow, knowing exactly how badly you're going to screw up does wonders for one's perspective, huh?> Marco said.

Jake gave a mental sigh. <Tobias, what are we looking at in terms of guards?>

<A fair amount of patrol on the ground, but very little on the roof. I haven't been able to see everything under the tarp, though.>

<They're going to notice a whole bunch of birds,> I pointed out. <Even seagulls. They won't take chances.>

<We go in as flies, then,> Marco suggested. <Tobias stays here as lookout and – >

<Is Tobias present in the Amazon, Prince Jake?> Ax asked.

<He was. Dammit. He saved Rachel's life at least once.>

<Thanks for that, Tobias,> Rachel said.

<Uh, no problem, I guess? But why was I there? What possible use could I have been _inside_ the Bug fighter in the original plan?! >

<So, everyone as flies on Tobias?> I asked.

<They will recognise Tobias, most likely,> Ax said.

<Not if we go in at night,> I suggested. <I mean, he'll be a lot harder to see.>

<And it'll be harder for me to see,> Tobias grumbled.

<Nobody ever said that any of this was a smart plan,> Marco noted.

<Except us, apparently.> Rachel absently preened the feathers of one wing.

<Okay, let's.... let's come back tonight,> Jake suggested. <Maybe all of this will make sense then.>


	14. Chapter 14

We met back at the hospital at sunset, five flies clinging to a red-tailed hawk.

The hospital had ample parking, which meant that the air around it had ample updraft for Tobias to fly on. We could see nothing, but I'd watched Tobias fly enough to guess what he was doing – he would circle the hospital once, carefully, then angle his descent to slip between two pieces of tarp.

<There's light under the tarp,> he said. <And I think people are moving around. Hard to be sure.>

<Be careful,> Jake said.

<Hey, this worked the first time, right? Or... will work. Or something.>

The light increased until I could make out Tobias' feathers. I saw the edge of a piece of tarp fly by. Then, we stopped moving.

<I'm on the Bug fighter. Easy as hunting a rabbit.>

<Can you get us inside?>

<I can try.>

<Marco,> Jake said, <your battle morph has hands and can climb well. Get off here and get ready in case we need cover.>

<You want me to hide, as a gorilla, atop a Bug fighter, ready to swing down and punch hork-bajir.>

<Yes.>

<Whatever you say, Fearless Leader.> One of my fellow flies disappeared.

<Okay, Tobias, whenever you're ready.>

<There are people down there carrying bits of metal around. I hope this thing actually flies. Okay, they're turning to... yep.> Tobias dropped off the side of the fighter and swooped. <Door is op-AAAARGH!!> The bird beneath us shook and jerked about.

<Tobias?!> Rachel asked.

<There are people in the fighter!>

<Everyone,> Jake called, <find somewhere to morph. Battle morphs, let's go!>

I took off, just in time to see Marco barrel past calling <Curious George is on the case!>, but there weren't that many places to hide. Humans and hork-bajir were shouting, more pouring out onto the roof.

<We can't take these guys!> I called.

<Everyone in the Bug fighter!> Jake shouted. <Marco, clear it out for us!>

I flew for the door and was nearly squashed by a man flying past, flailing at nothing.

<Clear!> Marco called. <Is everyone in?>

We all confirmed that we were, and the door slammed shut.

<Everyone demorph,> Jake said unnecessarily. <Ax, controls, as soon as you're able.>

<Yes, Prince Jake.>

I heard a rattling sound, like rain but much louder. The yeerks were firing on the Bug fighter. Nothing we could do about that except get out of there. I focused on Cassie the human.

Once I had human eyes, it was clear that there was something very strange about the Bug fighter.

Bug fighters were normally flown by one hork-bajir and one taxxon. The strange seat, made to accommodate a hork-bajir body, therefore wasn't strange; neither were the dozens of little controls spread out where a taxxon could operate them all simultaneously. But I was pretty sure that there shouldn't be panels missing from the consoles, with wires pouring out of them.

“They were pulling it apart,” I said, when I had a mouth.

<Yes,> Ax said in the calm, neutral voice he always used in combat. <It seems that they were cannibalising pieces for whatever they are building in the hospital. This would suggest that whatever parts they needed are in short supply. It also makes this fighter rather difficult to fly.>

“Well figure it out as quick as you can,” Jake said, “because we need to get out of here.”

I was already focusing on the wolf within me. If the yeerks broke through, I didn't want to be wearing my own face. And I wanted _teeth_.

Ax pressed something, and the engines roared to life.

<I found the on switch,> he said.

“Great,” Marco said. “Now find us the get-the-heck-outta-here switch!”

WHOOOOOOOSH!

It was like getting kicked in the chest. We all tumbled backward -- all but Ax, who had four legs. I lost focus on my morph and gave up. The acceleration was incredible. The Bug fighter rocketed forward. We rose straight up, tarp falling around us. We zoomed up into the dark night sky.

"We did it!" Rachel yelled.

<Sorry about the acceleration,> Ax said. <I forget that humans fall over easily.>

"Just get us out of here, Ax," Marco said.

“Maybe this isn't the event that causes the Sario Rip,” I said optimistically. “Maybe we actually pull this off.”

“Oh, Cassie,” Marco said. “Your mind must be such a wonderful place.”

<Somebody will need to take control of the weapons station,> Ax said, indicating the hork-bajir chair with his tail. <And could somebody look under this console and try to find a long red cylinder with wires in it?>

The boys, of course, immediately started fighting over the weapons station. Rachel checked what looked like built-in storage containers until she found a hand-held Dracon beam. I crawled under the console and started poking through the nest of wires, hoping nothing would electrocute me. “I don't see it,” I said. “There's a black cube and some kind of board with things clipped on, but – ”

<As I suspected. This ship is missing a photonic stabiliser.>

“Is that bad?”

<Well, it is one of the factors that may allow us to initiate a Sario Rip. It may also cause us to explode at any given moment.>

There was silence for several seconds.

“But we know we succeed at the rip thing,” Marco pointed out.

I didn't trust my understanding of time travel, or his, enough to let that comfort me.

<This ship is difficult to control,> Ax admitted. <Some of the controls are psychotronic, but others require manual handling. Without training in this specific model of fighter, it is difficult to keep the control commands stable... especially in a ship missing so many components.>

"Maybe I should test the weapons," Jake said to Ax, sounding about nine years old. He'd beaten Marco to the weapons station.

<Yes,> he said tersely, distracted.

We were rising up through the atmosphere.

We were above the clouds already. I could see brief flashes of the lights of the city down below, but mostly it was clouds and more clouds. But we weren't rising as fast as I would have expected. Ax was definitely working to control the ship.

Jake seemed to consider a joystick in front of him. He pressed one of the buttons.

Ax glanced over. <That was the safety. The Dracon beam should be armed now. See the screen before you? The red circle is how you aim. Use a combination of moving the joystick, but also use your mind.>

Marco put his hand on Jake's shoulder. "Phasers on full power!" he said in a Captain Picard English accent. "Arm photon torpedoes! If the Borg want a fight, we'll give them one! Make it so!"

It was kind of irritating, how much fun they were having in the face of near-certain death.

TSEWWWW! TSEWWWW!

Twin red beams of light fired forward, converging too far away for me to see.

"Yes! Most splendid!" Marco yelled.

"Boys with their toys," I muttered, rolling my eyes.

<Prince Jake?> Ax said. <I must apologize.>

"Why?"

<I did not at first realize: This Bug fighter's cloaking field is not working.>

Jake stared at him for a moment. "You mean... people can see us?"

<The clouds will hide us from people on the ground.> Ax said. <But human radar will observe us. In fact, they have already observed us.>

"Maybe we better get higher," Jake suggested.

<We are rising very slowly. I don't know why. And there are two objects approaching us.>

"Probably just airliners," Rachel said.

<The objects are moving at one and a half times the speed of sound,> Ax said.

"Okay, that's not a passenger plane," Marco said.

“Hang on,” I said, “isn't this exactly what we're trying to achieve? I mean, not the Sario rip thing, the original mission. If that's American military...”

“They might just try to shoot us out of the sky,” Marco said.

“Without knowing if we're hostile? No, they wouldn't do that... would they?”

“Well, we can't shoot them down,” Marco said. “They're the good guys.”

Suddenly . . .

SWOOOOOSH!

SWOOOOOSH!

Two pale gray jets blew past us. The backwash rattled the Bug fighter.

<I can access their radio signals,> Ax said. And a second later we heard the voice of one of the pilots.

"Um... Base Control, I... um... Bogie is of an unknown type. Say again, unknown type."

"Definitely unknown," the other pilot said. "Way unknown."

"We're coming around for another pass."

"We really don't want to get shot down by a couple of F-sixteens," Jake said.

<No, Prince Jake. That would be embarrassing. But I believe I can compensate for the missing buffers. I believe I now know how to increase->

FAH-WHOOOOOOOM!

Suddenly, we were outta there. Out of the clouds. Out of the atmosphere.

"Yes! This thing can move!" Marco exulted. "We need to buy this game."

We heard a fainter, crackling voice over the radio. "Did you see that? Did you see that thing move, Colonel? Did you see that? What the – "

Then we were out of range, still zooming straight up into black space. Below us I could see the curvature of the earth. It looked just like one of those pictures the shuttle astronauts take from up in orbit.

“Ax,” Jake said, “maybe we'd better slow down, get some idea of – ”

<No! No!> Ax snapped.

I was shocked. Ax is always polite.

<No, Prince Jake,> he said, a little more calmly. <We cannot slow down.>

"What's the matter?" I asked.

Ax pointed at one of the view screens before him. On the screen I saw stars. Then the moon came into view, a vast gray-and-white lightbulb. And silhouetted against the glowing moon was a shape. It was like some medieval battle-ax. The rear half was a two-headed blade. From the middle, like an ax handle, extended a long shaft. At the end of the shaft was a triangular head, very much like an arrow's point. Black on black.

The Blade ship.

<I believe that we can now ascertain what went wrong when we attempted this mission,> Ax continued, slipping into his battle-neutral tones. <Our unstabilised blasts, combined with the sort of high-powered weaponry expected on a Blade ship...>

“Are you saying we're going to get into a firefight with Visser Three?” Marco groaned.

<Yes. I believe that we are.>


	15. Chapter 15

I don't understand how time travel works, really.

I mean, we knew that the Sario Rip happened. But did that mean that we'd made it happen by doing this mission, and now we were doing it again and could fail and somehow... rewrite the 'first' time? Or was this the only time; we'd only ever attempted this mission knowing about the rip, and everything just sort of fit together right at the end?

Was it possible for us to fail? Were we facing the very real possibility of being killed by Visser Three's Blade ship?

And if we did fail... what happened? What would it mean for us to never cause the rip?

I didn't have time to even try to puzzle it out right then. All I knew was that the Blade ship was coming for us, and we weren't going to get away.

The Blade ship gained on us fast. Frighteningly fast.

We couldn't outrun it. We couldn't outfight it.

But if there was some version of history where we didn't know about the rip, then we all knew what that version of us would have done.

There was no choice. There was nowhere to go.

We would have fought anyway.

I put a hand on Jake's shoulder and squeezed it in encouragement.

<Hold on. You may be unsteady on your human legs.> Ax warned.

He threw the Bug fighter into a quick, tight turn. He was right. I almost fell over before the Bug fighter's systems compensated for inertia.

Then Ax really lit up the engines and we leaped forward, straight for the Blade ship.

<Ready to fire!> Ax said. It wasn't a question. <Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Wait until… NOW!>

Jake fired!

The Blade ship fired!

Everything was bright. Everything slowed. I could see through my own hands. I could see through Ax, who had somehow dashed to Jake's side and wrapped his own delicate andalite hand over Jake's thick human one, both cupped around the joystick. I could see his eyes frowning in intense concentration, but I could also see the bones inside his body, an oddly mammalian skeleton for an alien. His main eyes, like Jake's eyes, were affixed on the little control panel for the weapons station.

I couldn't move.

Wait, no – I was moving very, very slowly. Or thinking very, very quickly. There was no time to speak, not with how slowly my mouth moved. I couldn't even sweep my eyes about the cockpit.

Thoughtspeak, however, did not seem to be affected.

<Prince Jake,> Ax said calmly, <the beam frequency is impossible to stabilise on more than one front in resonance with the Zero-space transponders. I cannot maintain both a beacon in spacetime for our counterparts to lock onto and the initial Sario rip.>

Jake, like me, couldn't respond. But Tobias could.

<What happens,> he said, <if we don't create the Sario rip this time?>

<I don't know. Nobody does. The scenario is hypothetical, and the physics involved – >

<Can it be worse than us not escaping the rip?>

<No. The worse possible result is the same – mutual termination.>

<Then maintain the beacon, and hope like hell that the other versions of us know what they're doing.>

In front of us, the light where the two Dracon beams met exploded into a strange scene; a balloon in space of grass and trees. An andalite – Ax – stood shielded by a piece of spaceship wreckage, operating a very large, previously ship-mounted dracon beam pointed right at us. A jaguar, a bear, and two spider monkeys fought some sort of tall green thing covered in spiked vines that was most definitely not from Earth. A red-tailed hawk wheeled above it, looking for a vulnerable spot to dive at.

The other Ax's main eyes were on his control panel, too, but one of his stalk eyes watched us. <Prince Jake! We need to leave now!>

<Everyone, through the portal!>

A hawk, two monkeys, and a bear dashed towards us, a jaguar following a few feet behind. The portal narrowed quickly; too quickly.

<You too, Ax; let's go.>

<I must maintain – aargh!>

One of the thorny alien vines had swept around Ax's makeshift shelter and carved along his flank. He made to gallop toward the portal, but his injury slowed him, and the portal was still closing. There was no way he could make it.

One of the monkeys, already past him, spun to help. <Ax!> it screamed, in my own mental voice. I watched the other me dash back, uselessly, even though I didn’t have the strength in that morph to do anything useful. I was an idiot, apparently. I dodged around a spiked vine, chattering, trying to draw the monster’s attention.

 _Run, you idiots!_ I wanted to scream. _You don’t have time for this! It’s mad dash time! Feel bad later!_

But Rachel, of course, had turned her grizzly head around to see what I was doing. There was no way she’d run while Ax and I were in the fray.

Something was moving in the corner of my eye.

I’d almost forgotten the spaceship I was in, almost forgotten how we were all sitting motionless while the battle unfolded before us. But something was moving inside the cabin. I couldn’t move or focus my oh-so-slow eyes in time to get a clear picture, but I could fuzzily make out Rachel, one hand wrapped around the handle and trigger of her Dracon beam. The other was cupped around the barrel to steady it; the Dracon was built for hork-bajir hands and unwieldy in hers.

She was in the midst of firing at the Blade ship. Her hands were glowing a faint red, the same red as the laser beam itself, in a halo of fuzzy light. And they were moving. The rest of her was as motionless as me, but her hands and wrists could move.

Our Ax seemed to notice the same thing. There was a hint of apprehension and dread in his voice as he asked, <Rachel, can you move?>

Through the rapidly-shrinking portal, the battle raged on. A bear, a jaguar and two spider monkeys tried to keep the giant monster occupied. Ax tried to make his way back to the machine he’d left, while Tobias sat atop it, his hesitant movements suggesting that he was obeying instructions he could barely understand. It was easy to tell who was who in the battle, even for those of us outside out usual morphs. We’d fought together enough to know when to set up an attack for each other, when to step aside or when to shield. Marco and I had morphed identical monkeys, but I knew at a glance that the one trying to clear a path for Ax was Marco, that the one backing up jaguar-Jake was me.

<They’re not going to make it,> Tobias said.

<I am aware,> Ax replied tersely.

<Right, so whatever the super-risky plan B is, this would be the time.>

<What makes you think I have -- ?>

<Ax. Please. I’ve seen you sidestep questions. I heard your tone when you spoke to Rachel just now, like you’d figured out something you didn’t want to have figured out. Our choices are death or whatever crazy physics thing you’re holding back, so tell us the crazy physics thing.>

<Prince -- >

<Prince Jake can’t give orders right now! Make your own decision!>

The portal was smaller than the Amazonian versions of Rachel and Ax, and neither would have time to get smaller even if they ran for it immediately. Jake’s side was laid open. I’d lost an arm, had it torn clean off by lashing vines. Reparable injuries, but they’d slow us.

<Rachel,> our Ax said, calmly. <You must aim that Dracon beam through the portal. You must aim to kill. There can be no chance to dodge; we have no weapon but surprise. And yet you cannot stop firing, or the field around your hands will collapse and they will freeze, like us. Do you understand? You will have to sweep the beam through the portal and enact a killing blow.>

A killing blow? On that vine thing? Did it even have vulnerable parts? And how was she supposed to see them behind those lashing vines, let alone hit them? Rachel wasn’t experienced with any kind of ranged weapon, let alone an alien gun made for alien hands! How was she supposed to strike a killing blow?

All questions I couldn’t ask with my stupid, slow, frozen lips.

<A killing blow, Rachel,> Ax repeated. <There can be no hesitation.>

He paused. In the Amazon, the battle continued.

<You must fire through that portal, and kill Prince Jake.>


	16. Chapter 16

I was, of course, incapable of voicing my confusion and protests. So was Rachel.

Tobias wasn’t.

<Ax?! What the hell?!>

<It is the only way!> Ax insisted. <I am aware of the problems with the scenario. If you wish to go down quietly in the Sario rip annihilation then I will not attempt to change your mind. And if Prince Jake wishes to execute or exile me later for my treason then I will not gainsay the decision. But Tobias, you wanted to know my ‘super-risky plan B’. This is it. This is the only way to escape the Sario rip.>

<Without Jake? No way. There has to be another way.>

<Prince Jake would ‘die’ less than any of us. He will survive. This I can assure you.>

<Based on the class you paid little attention in and physics you’re not sure about.>

<Yes. Based upon that.>

<Sounds pretty shaky.>

<It is. That is why I did not mention it until you insisted.>

<So this is my – > Tobias stopped talking. It was immediately obvious why. He’d stopped when the glow around Rachel’s hands has abruptly faded. She’d used her mobility to release the trigger, leaving herself as immobile as the rest of us. It seemed that Jake wasn’t going to get shot.

Through the portal, a bear roared, enraged. I couldn’t see it. The portal was too small for anyone to get through by then, except possibly Tobias if he tucked his wings.

So that was it, then. The portal would fade. We would die. I wished I could’ve exchanged glances or smiles or comforting words with my comrades in arms. I wish I could’ve done something other than sit frozen. But really, what was there to do or say?

The bear roared again. A monkey screamed. I heard my own mental voice, loud and raw with emotion, scream <JAKE! JAKE, NO!>

Marco’s voice. <Oh, I am going to cut up that son of a -- >

And then the portal, abruptly, slammed closed. Time hit its normal pace all at once.

Jake frowned at us, confused. “What just – ”

“OCEAN!” Rachel screamed.

We all looked out the front of the ship to see the water rising to meet us, very fast. Ax dashed to the ship's controls and dragged the ship up, knocking us all off our feet as it rested mere feet above the water. The ship shook as a wave crashed into us, and Ax took us below the waterline. All four of his eyes furiously scanned instruments. <I believe we are safe. We are extremely fortunate that we did not crash.>

“Right,” I said, trying to sound calm. “So, now that we're apparently safe. What just happened? Where is the Blade ship? And how are we all here when we didn't make it through that portal?”

<Prince Jake,> Ax said, <what is the last thing that you remember?>

“I was in jaguar morph, fighting Visser Three,” he said, sounding confused. “I think...” he put his hands suddenly to his throat. “He got me pretty bad, didn't he?”

<He killed you,> Ax said.

“Wait,” Marco said. “What?”

<Escaping a Sario rip in the manner we attempted today is the only confirmed way to succeed. But there are other... theoretical methods to prematurely collapse a rip. One of them is to destroy a displaced Zero-space connection. When you died, Prince Jake, such a connection was severed, prematurely collapsing the rip with what I suspect were microseconds or nanoseconds to spare.>

“And that would be why you urged Rachel to kill me?”

Ax bowed his head. <Yes, Prince Jake.>

“You figured this would happen, because only I was getting the flashbacks. You knew Rachel could move well enough to shoot. You drew the logical conclusion and wanted her to shoot me.”

<Yes, Prince Jake.>

Jake nodded. “Good thinking, Ax. I don’t know what we’d do without you on the team.”

I glanced at Rachel. She wasn’t meeting anyone’s eye. There was color in her cheeks. The Dracon beam hung limply in her hands. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was thinking. She’d failed. When crunch time came, when it was time to strike a blow and protect us all, she’d chosen not to act and send us all to our very probable deaths. She was probably calling herself a coward, inventing mental scenarios about how we all could have died because she’d chosen not to shoot.

I was going to have to make sure that Jake had a talk with her. Make sure that he made it clear that nobody thought of ‘refusing to murder teammates’ as a sign of cowardice.

“Back up,” Marco said. “You're saying we all died today?”

<That is one perspective. A less unsettling one might be to think of it as we stopped an unstable timeline from existing today. For everybody except Prince Jake, that is.>

“Wait a second,” I said. “Things exist or they don't. They can't exist for one person and not another.”

Ax regarded me with interest. <Why not?>

“If you suspected this would happen,” Jake cut in, “why didn't you tell us over there, in the Amazon? Why did you drag us through this whole thing when I could've just committed suicide in the Amazon at any point and spared us all this trouble?”

<I cannot know what that version of me thought, Prince Jake. But it was an untested theory, and one that I was not paying much attention to when it was taught>

“So instead we went with the 'steal a Bug fighter and fight Visser Three' plan?” Marco asked. “Which is – and I'd like to add that I never thought I'd ever need to say this – _actually more suicidal than the suicide plan_?”

<We knew that we would survive long enough to have the opportunity to open a Sario Rip,> Ax pointed out. <So it was less dangerous than it seemed. At least, up until the rip event.>

“Can I propose no more time travel?” Marco asked. “Like, ever? It's incredibly confusing and I still understand almost none of it. Like how Amazon-you knew how to tune into your beacon even though this you didn’t technically go to the Amazon...” he shook his head. “Can we just never time travel again?”

Ax gave him an andalite smile. <Time travel, especially accidental time travel, is exceedingly rare. I am confident that we will not encounter it again.> He looked up at the waves above. <I suppose the real concern is how to get home. I am unwilling to leave the atmosphere again, in case the Blade ship is still searching for us. And I do not know where on Earth we are.>

I looked up, too. Sunlight poured through the waves, making little dancing patterns on the inside of the ship. “How did we even end up down here?”

<My guess would be that the outside of the ship did not experience the same time dilation effects as the inside. These sorts of problems can happen with improperly calibrated inertial dampeners.>

“Right.” I decided it would be easier to pretend to understand that. “What time is it at home right now?”

<It is forty-five of your minutes past eight.>

“Right. Well, there's the sun. If we use it to find the right latitude, then put the Earth between us and it until it's where it should be at 8:45, that should put us pretty close to home.”

<Right,> Ax said, sounding embarrassed. <Of course.> He fiddled with some controls, and we started to move.

<We should keep this Bug fighter,> Tobias said. <It could be really handy for getting around.>

<This vehicle is in a state of disrepair,> Ax reminded us. <It is in too much danger of suddenly exploding to be a practical long-term transport.>

“We're still not sure what the yeerks were using the parts for,” I pointed out.

“Are you kidding me?” Marco said. “No, Cassie. No. Here's what we do know – today, we stole this stupid thing, nearly died, had a run-in with the Air Force, then _got into a firefight with Visser Three_ and nearly died again, all while actually dying or possibly not existing in some kind of time pocket dimension and now we're on the other side of the world in the middle of the ocean in a ship that could explode at any time which, I might remind you, is a _step up_ from being stranded in the Amazon fighting yeerks, even though one of us can only remember that. So no hospital build project. No yeerk vaccines. No time travel theories. Instead, how about, just this once... we all go home and watch TV?”

I glanced from Rachel, looking at the Dracon in her hands, to Jake, looking a bit shellshocked over his own death, to Ax and Tobias, whose body language suggested an awkward private thought-speak conversation.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you're right.” We could always try to figure out what the yeerks were planning tomorrow.

After all, we had time.


End file.
